1 Oct 27, 2005

Oct 27, 2005: Major work on my 2D game has been going on. With my latest plans, the 2D game won't be all that 2D, although still 2D in design. Fall means raking leaves, and I got $20 for doing it. Getting XP is now unlikely. Spy Sweeper is now gone as it's causing problems for me. I can now record at up to 100,000 Hz sample rates and I should be able to change the sample rates without using WinDAT. I also have a major obsession with a certain type of lower case G. This is a blog-only update (see entry #1 and #9 for details on why).

#1 Major 2D game update: Now what do you suppose is in store for the 2D game? How about a very realistic 3D feel, nearly 5 times better than before? Now, close your eyes and imagine this. There is a road in the close background where you can see cars going along it at 55 mph. The road, just like everything else, has a 3D effect to it. Now imagine not just one row of houses, but 5 or 6 rows. Now imagine the city having not just one row of buildings, but 5 or even more! Also, now imagine the houses and buildings being far less repetitive as well as the mountains and hills. Oh, yeah, even the hills have multiple rows. Also, imagine a smoother looking fogging effect in the distance. Imagine a fence in the front that the houses are behind where the road is closer. What does all this have to do with the 2D game? Those are my latest plans. Also, menus are going to be implemented instead of all those complicated keyboard controls and, perhaps, even being able to use different resolutions (not just 800x600, but 1024x768 and even as high as 1280x960)! This change is going to be so big, the original price for the full version will nearly double to something from $6.95 to $9.95. As usual, the final price is undecided, depending mostly on quality. There will, however, still be a free version. The free version, too, will also get a change. The free version will likely have a demo of the full version where you can only watch it instead of play it, but get a feel on just what the full version is like if you do decide to buy. These changes are so big, I can expect another two weeks' worth of work, but I've been working on the 2D game so much lately, I should be done by then. I have intentions of releasing this game as a nonbeta (for sale) before the start of December of 2005. I haven't been on the forums much lately because of this and I've been forgetting about updating my website for quite some time. My 2D game takes top priority over my website so don't be alarmed to find that updates to my website may slow down. At this point, I've completed two sets of now 5 mountain ranges. However, due to a new technique discovered, I can get much smoother lighting in about the same time as I did before. It's so smooth, you'd have to zoom in a lot just to see the pixelation effects. The image is so vivid in my mind, it's as if it has been completed already in my mind! As of this update, here are two screenshots on what my 2D game looks like at the moment:

Screenshot #1: From this screenshot, you can clearly see the fogging effect in the distance going from the green grass to the color of the sky, 4060FF. Here, you can see the two closest mountain ranges that are odd compared to the three further ones. The two closest ones are the ones I've redone. The closest ones use the old lighting method that I had and the second closest ones use the new lighting method. The hills, city, and houses are unchanged and the other features planned haven't been added yet. This screenshot is my favorite.

Screenshot #2: After climbing to right next to the highest possible, I got this screenshot so you can get a second look at the fogging effect and the two mountain ranges. The sky is very dark due to the space effect, and this is a real effect. That's about 8 21/40 miles high (about 8 1/2 miles) just to give you an idea on how high that is.

#2 Fall means leaves fall: Being Fall (aka Autumn), leaves begin changing colors and fall to the ground meaning that you'll need to take out the rakes and trash bags. Unfortunately, that meant work for me. Fortunately, I got paid $20 for doing it which made the compatibility go from the low to mid 300's to the upper 500's giving me enough motive to actually do it.
#3 XP rejected: I was looking forward to getting Windows XP Home edition, but, since I found out that the cost is way higher than expected ($200 versus the $90 to $120 I thought for Home Edition.), I'm rejecting the thoughts of getting Windows XP Home edition for this reason. This means that I'll likely be with Windows 98 SE for another year or so.... Since I can't contact Microsoft in any way (short of using the phone) due to an invalid security certificate notice (signed by an unknown authority), there's no other way of asking Microsoft directly on a long list of questions that I have.
#4 Bye bye Spy Sweeper!: Trying to figure out why my system is so slow, I tried messing around with msconfig. Since sometimes a program from Norton called ccApp (DLL or EXE file, I'm not sure which) stops responding upon start up causing my system to crash, I disabled it from startup. Yet, even with that, I was still having a slow problem. I reenabled ccApp on startup but disabled Spy Sweeper, another program giving me trouble, even more trouble than before. Since version 4.0 was released, Spy Sweeper has been unstable and, strangely, is not detecting any spyware through any scans it does. I downloaded Adaware and to my surprise, there were quite a few pieces of spyware that Spy Sweeper wasn't detecting at all. From that, I decided to no longer use Spy Sweeper. Since the subscription has expired (although the program itself says that I've got another 7 months left and refreshes upon installing a new version (due to the registry)), I am no longer able to get any updates and with the way Spy Sweeper is acting now, I'm not encouraged to renew the subscription. Since I removed Spy Sweeper from startup, two good things have happened. The first is that my system is now faster (even with the hidden spyware) and, best of all, Firefox doesn't have that copy effect as bad as it was (I haven't had it yet, but then again, I haven't been on the forums as much lately anyway and it takes a lot of browsing (even 3 hours) before it starts happening). Unfortunately, I'm still getting the blue screen of death upon shutdown however, I have two very good clues. One clue is that the memory address in question, 0028:00000002, is always the same every single time. In fact, the entire message is exactly the same, word for word and to the design. The second clue is that I don't get it when my computer has been on for a short period of time, but if it has been on for a long period of time, I will then get it. It's like solving a mystery. You have clues and you need to put the clues together to solve the mystery. From what I can tell, it could be either of four issues: I have a faulty install of Windows. I have a bad memory chip in that particular address (my system runs just fine otherwise). Some program is having a conflict with something (and it's not Spy Sweeper). The final thing is that the motherboard and processor that I just recently got are incompatible with Windows in some way (though I'm able to run Windows just fine otherwise).
#5 I wished I never had a nose: Some take their nose for granted, but my nose is far more of a hassle than anything else. Not only is my sense of smell very weak (I can't smell chicken from a foot a way when my parents can from ten feet away), but I get a lot of nose bleeds. My compatibility with my nose is actually in the low 100's right now and has peaked below 100 a few times. That makes it 25 times worse than neutral and thus the reason why I wished I never had a nose.
#6 I may be in luck for sample rate changing: Fearing that WinDAT won't run on XP (WinDAT was made before even Windows 95 came out!), I tried something out. I created a test WAV file and duplicated it. I had one of the WAV files at 5000 Hz and another at 50,000 Hz. I then took out my hex reader (it doesn't save files, just reads them and shows the hex numbers) and examined them. I found only two differences and to my surprise, those differences were the sample rate and oddly enough, the value was duplicated.... At position 18 of the file (the 24th byte), this is where the info is stored. Now, if only I can find a way to save WAV files using a hex editor, I can change the sample rates that way without the need of using WinDAT. This is the most important thing I use. However, this means that recording will be rather tough. Fortunately, I rarely record anything as it is. Once I gain enough knowledge to program in C or something, I'd write my own WAV edittor to do just this.
#7 Super high quality recording: Before, I was limited to just 50,000 Hz sample rates for recording. I've found a bug I theorized that existed in WinDAT where I can now record at up to 100,000 Hz. To use the bug, open a sound file in WinDAT, and play it. Change the sample rate to 100,000 Hz (using transforms and selecting the "change speed") and play it again. You'll get an "invalid sample rate" warning, but if you simply play the file again, it sounds just fine and is logged. Then go to options and choose setup and click okay without changing anything. Click record then play to begin recording at 100,000 Hz. Strangely enough, I had thought of something very similar nearly a year ago, I just now got around to finding it out. From this, I rerecorded OWTLI (the usual one; and it sounds better too)) and Desert Zone.
#8 A big obsession with little g's: I've been having a big obsession with g's, a particular kind of lower case G that is. If you have the fonts Book Antiqua or Times New Roman, you'll know what I mean. It looks like a flattened oval on the bottom with a circle on the top with some spacing (about 1/3 the height of the bottom circle of clear space) where the two circles are connected by an arc on the left side and a line extends out from the top circle on the left side to the right (sometimes a little upwards). An image best describes it:

This is the font Book Antiqua (left) and Arial (right) at font size 160 (so you can see the detail).
#9 This will be a blog-only update: Although I have a lot of new dreams add (they have been added), the page containing my dreams needs to be formatted to the SHTML version for the version 6.0 changeover on my website. This, however, will take a long time to do (It's mostly just saving HTML files as SHTML, and using lots of that famous copy paste and modifying the links - an estimated 2 to 3 hours worth of work.). The dreams, however, have been added, but not "released".

2 Oct 9, 2005

Oct 9, 2005: Another big flood of new dreams added, 14 in fact. I also had the first blizzard of the year. A major update has occurred to the blog as well. The platforms for my 3D game now have an unlimited color palette. My 2D game is undergoing another graphical update - the scenery is being changed.
#1 14 new dreams: It's like all of a sudden, the rocket's engine just started back up again. I've got another flood of new dreams added to my website, 14 in fact. This is the largest number of new dreams added in a single update, but it isn't my fastest. I had 20 dreams recalled in just a week once back when I only had 70 or so dreams. The newest dreams are, if you don't mind the long list: dream 1-30 (featuring a mud river in a strange building that is smooth), dream 2-30 (featuring a secret area found in Mushroom Hill Zone and a remake of the game), dream 2-31 (featuring Mario in one of his popular castles), dream 2-32 (featuring a strange glitch in the original Mario), dream 2-33 (featuring a Jumping Flash game with new levels never seen before), dream 3-23 (featuring a strange indoor pool park with odd-shaped pools of random water temperatures), dream 3-24 (featuring a wading pool with a fancy design and a fountain), dream 3-25 (featuring playing in dirty water (water, but slightly mud-like) in secret areas), dream 5-36 (featuring an airplane museum with an unusual layout), dream 5-37 (featuring another trip into Canada with a cell phone crashing), dream 6-18 (featuring an airplane ride - very strongly forgotten), dream 10-22 (featuring the end of a school year in my high school), dream 10-23 (featuring the beginning of a school year in my middle school), and dream 11-43 (featuring a big cliff that is near a fair ground - has pretty scenery). I spent nearly 3 1/2 hours typing all that! I recalled one new dream while typing dream 3-23 (I originally had 13 to add, but this made it 14). This update is so big, it's a level 6 update, a first for only dreams being added. Yet, one of my dreams nearly predicted what was to come a few days later (hint: read the headline below).
#2 First blizzard: Last year, there was no snow clear until just before Christmas which is a very rare thing. This year, the winter storms hit early starting off with a big blizzard. Something very screwy is going on. I wonder what's with all the major storms, disease breakouts, and many other things lately. The blizzard took the power away from some in my area due to the 50 mph winds and heavy snow. The power in my house went out a few times, and unpredictably, but it remained on after the storm went away.
#3 Major update to the blog: As you may have noticed, the blog looks different with all those colors. I had this in mind for quite a long time. The details on what the color coding means are found in the area at the bottom. The headlines are placed on the top and are based on the update times. Day-by-day events are placed on the bottom. The color coding, however, only applies, at this moment, to this page. It will be implemented in the next update for all other months in my blog. It took nearly 7 hours to type up just the dreams and blog alone!
#4 History in the works: The document about my history is also being changed, but it could be another 4 or so days before I actually finish. I'm rewriting the entire thing from scratch. So far, two pages have been done in full with a third about 1/3 finished and it now includes a history of me and music.
#5 2D game scenery being redone: The way I currently have the 2D game's scenery isn't really all that accurate although it is reasonably close. Plus, the amount of repetition is just too strong, especially in the closest mountains. Instead of 640 pixels wide, it's now going to be 2048 pixels with enhanced anti-aliasing as I've done with the clouds already. 2048 wide for the two closest sets of mountains, and 1536 wide for the two furthest sets of mountains. The hills, city, and houses remain undecided upon, however, but they will change. Since I can't do much of anything else in my 3D game until that update is released, and since my 2D game is the only thing I can really do much with, I decided to make changes to the graphics.
#6 Unlimited color palette for 3D game - before, I had a supply of just 64 colors available. Now, I have a supply of nearly 4.3 billion colors available. Before, I had to use one texture for each color. Now, I only need one texture for all colors. You can set the red, green, blue, and alpha from 0 to 255 as you see fit. It came as an idea. Because of this, the platforms, all of them, have been changed in the tutorial level in my 3D game. Even the goal platform has been modified and even the start platform was finally created! What would you do with 4.3 billion colors?

3 Day-by-day events

Oct 1: Mostly the forums with only a little TV. I watched TV mainly while nothing was going on on the forums - waiting for a reply. I also found a potential bug involving scripts. This isn't a typical game bug, but either an engine bug or a manual error. Near the end, I helped someone on the Gamestudio forums with an image. Some calculations here and there but that was all that was needed. I then tried working on my 2D game to fix one of my own bugs involving the clouds, but got unexpected results. I was too tired to do anything. It seems like I might be going away from the howwhatwhy forums. One user has reached the lower 200's to even the upper 100's. This is the first time I've ever seen someone on those forums drop below 300. I wonder how they'll react. For the 2D game, I may redo the background scenery to get a more realistic feel, especially for equidistant spacing and reduced repetition. Woke up at 12:50 PM and went to bed at 1:31 AM.
Oct 2: I lucked out in potential disliked work. Whew! I went on the forums for some time. I then started a simple 3D animation (with perspective effects using my latest techniques that I indirectly had for many years). I then watched TV for 3 hours and returned to the forums. I also began modelling the main player. His feet, legs, hands, and arms are completed almost in full (texturing for one). The chest is half done. I did this while waiting for anything to occur on the forums. Only the head remains afterward. Next is texturing it, doing final touches, then animating it. Before, player animation was a tough part and I couldn't get it to work, especially the area near the arms when jumping. This time, I have a new way to hopefully work around this issue. While doing the hands/arms, two new dreams flashed into my mind. Woke up at 11:20 AM �5 minutes and went to bed at 3:01 AM.
Oct 3: For the player for my 3D game, only the final touches remain as well as finalizing, texturing, and animating it. I was on the forums waiting for anything new while doing this. I watched some TV, but not much. When nothing was on TV, around elevenish, a show came on with "TV-MA" appearing in the top left corner. As soon as I saw that, I hit the channel up button very quickly to prevent from watching it any further. Near the end of the day, I continued working on the closest mountains for my 2D game. 4 sets of mountains of a predicted 13 have been done already. Oh, and today was cold! Snow is expected soon. Woke up at 12:25 PM and went to bed at 4:52 AM.
Oct 4: I had a mix of good and bad luck. I thought of a clever idea for more realistic waves for the water - cross-copying the same entity to create an overlap effect. It looks nearly twice as good. When I first tested it, it reminded me of the waves in Super Mario Sunshine and how they behaved. I continued on redoing the mountains for my 2D game. I'm 3/4 of the way across, but got a very long way ahead for just this mountain range alone. I then went on editting the blog for the version 6.0 changeover, even writing a new document on the layout of the blog and how it works. Having been sidetracked, I began editting the history section. Then, 3/4 of the way through the first of two documents, being completely rewritten, the power goes out like 4 times in about 5 minutes. This was due to a blizzard. There was a big snowstorm with strong winds. The power went out three more times with a case where, after the 6th one went off, turned on then back off a tenth of a second later coming back on again. The outages lasted for an average of about a half of a second. Had a hard time getting to sleep. Woke up at 1:12 PM and went to bed at 8:07 AM.
Oct 5: Had a very hard time getting to sleep with my pesky MP3 player turning off after every 2 or 3 minutes, even without the power going out. I woke up to see a ground that was all-white from snow. Much of the day was spent watching TV. I probably logged 8 hours of TV with the rest of my time spent on the forums and then updating my website. I've had some thoughts of a compatibility graph for the entire song of Out Where the Lake Is, my top favorite songs. It peaks clear up to 992 and averages 988.3. Due to the blizzard, my dad slept at my sister's place. Woke up at 4:30 PM � 5 minutes and went to bed at 5:24 AM.
Oct 6: Lots of TV again. The 3DGS forums followed. Next was doing something for mom - a work duty checklist. When trying to print it out, I ran into a lot of trouble - 3 screenshots in only 10 minutes. Normally, 5 days would go by by the time I get that many (statistical average). First the printer wouldn't take the paper in the tray. It took 3 attempts to it to take the paper. Then, upon printing the second sheet, the dumb thing took the whole stack of paper in the tray. On the third attempt, it caused a paper jam where the head couldn't move. I got "mechanism error" from that. To top that out, Excel crashed 3 times on me just trying to print and one case ended up causing me to send an error report to Microsoft. After all that, the second page finally printed. At the end, I started the outline for my abandoned project's storyline. When I wrote about the printers stuff, I laughed quite hard when it came to the paper jam part and the mechanism error. Woke up at 4:24 PM and went to bed at 6:37 AM.
Oct 8: First it was TV, then the forums, and E-mail. In my E-mail, I found out that my website's IP address was changing for my website. I spent uite some time trying to figure this out but couldn't so I had to end up sending an E-mail. I then ate while watching more TV, then revisited the forums. I then began editting my website (school history - mainly the elementary school times) while waiting for anything new. The elementary school part is basically done. My mind game's "free camera" mode helps me visualize the area from otherwise impossible angles (such as a basement floor from 100 feet above and seeing the layout). I started the middle school part, but ran out of time due to being too tired. I drank 3 cans of lemonade within one hour (this isn't a record, however, but I sure got a stomach ache from it). Woke up at 4:43 PM and went to bed at 9:27 AM.
Oct 9: Forums at the start as well as a little TV. I then began working on the mountains for my 2D game. I then had the urge to update my website. Shortly after 3:00 AM clear until 10:25 AM, I spent the entire time without breaks typing the 14 new dreams (now at 268) and my blog. I also, as a part of that, finished the rest of the reformatting of the blog. Included was an image to assist one of my dreams which took 40 minutes to do, much of which was due to debating on how to do something. Factor out the format changes and 20 minutes of debation, I would've been done before 9:00 AM. Luckily, a few shortcuts I found saved some time. Tried drawing my old imaginary friends from ten years ago. Woke up at an unknown time and went to bed at 10:31 AM.
Oct 10: Forums, again, then some TV. I then returned to the forums and watched TV again. A third return was a final, very long one. When I "cleaned through" the categories I frequent most, I continued working on those mountains while waiting for anything new. At the end of the day, the closest mountains are nearly 3/4 finished. The 8-step lighting is done, but need 16-step lighting, antialiasting on edges, and fog. I've still got quite a ways to go yet. At least it'll pass the time by until the update is released. It's the best I can do. Besides, the 2D game will just have more realistic graphics. Woke up at 8:43 PM (�5 minutes) and went to bed at 12:02 PM.
Oct 11: Almost all day was spent on forums and while waiting for anything new, I worked on the closest mountains' lighting. It is now 99% finished - just need anti-aliasing, fog (which is easy), and finalization. So far, just two days have passed by since the last update and I'm already up to five new dreams to add. I also showered as my mom was getting annoyed about it. Woke up at 9:26 PM and went to bed at 2:35 PM.
Oct 12: Forums and mountains were the main thing of the day. Late in the day, while watching TV (Cosmos in particular), I experimented with WinDAT and my prediction of a bug a year ago was finally tested. Above 100,000 Hz, it doesn't record right, although I could record up to 1,000,000 Hz (4,000,000 is around the highest I could go). When the show was over, I rerecorded Out Where the Lake Is and Desert Zone in the 100KHz version. I then spent about 40 minutes cropping the recordings (ran into a confusing situation on one of the two songs - otherwise it would've taken maybe 10 minutes). I then began listening to them racking up lots of plays right away. Out Where the Lake Is, sounding much better than original recording, was the first song I listened to. I then returned to the forums, including HWW, of which went unvisited for over a week. Nothing was going on much. I repeatedly refreshed the page watching TV in the background. At the end, I turned off my computer and watched one more hour of TV. Mountains lighting is done and part of antialiasing effect is done and only finalization remains.
Oct 13: The usual: forums and TV. I'm also "out" of cheese and parents aren't getting any - out comes Hamburger Helper (without the hamburger of course - I hate meat). I continued on with the mountains. I was so close to finished, I ended the visit to the forums and went on. I then finished it and tested it then modified my code to allow for a smoother time. 1/4x time now runs in 60 frames per second instead of 15. Most everything from the smoother time has been updated except the challenges and tutorial and probably some others that I don't recall. Acceleration, the square of the time, gets tricky to deal with. I like watching those ads with "call in the next ten minutes" (or of the related) in them. There's an estimated one in 1E6800 chance that this ad will not appear on some station within the next ten minutes (calculated based on 50,000 TV stations in the US with ten minutes between ad sessions, 20 available ads for a station, and 5 ads per ad session). That's a one followed by nearly seven thousand zeros, so astronomically remote, it seems like it won't happen (and with more TV stations being added, the chances reduce by 25% for each TV station added). Even if all stations were identical for their channel (like all CBS stations having the exact same ads and exact same programming), the chances are still a 1 in 1E38. You have a much better chance of winning the lottery 4 times in a row (or 800 times in a row if each station was different (!)) without losing than the TV ad not appearing within ten minutes. These numbers shocked me when I figured them out! The math behind it will be in the tips and tricks category when that category is processed for the version 6.0 changeover. I switched to the high quality version of Desert Zone. Woke up at 1:27 AM (�2 minutes) and went to bed at 4:51 PM.
Oct 14: A mix of the usual - forums and TV. After the forums, I then created a realistic fogging effect for my 2D game and I'm like "WOW!" when I first saw it after scripting the changes necessary to get it to work. I then had intentions on really expanding on the 2D game - roads, cars, a lot more houses and buildings - a true 3D and realistic feel. 3D and only 2D in design! I had to revert back to the old way where 1/4x time was 15 frames per second as lots of unexplained things were happening like the background not moving correctly horizontally, the stats doing odd things and so on. Reverting back was quick - just use copy paste from a backup I had. I then began working on the second set of mountains, the ones next further away. This will replicate my mind game more around 7 or 8% instead of 5% as it was beforehand. Getting XP is now almost certainly out of the question. I found out, through Microsoft's website and from newegg.com that XP Home edition is $200. I can't get those OEM versions due to the way the license is. I'll now certainly be with Windows 98 SE, being an old operating system as it is, clear until 2006. I also think I found a way to modify the sample rates of WAV files - need a hex editor, not a hex reader. Near the beginning of the day (when I woke up), I fixed the contents of the media library in Winamp - titles were often off due to the 8-character limit of WinDAT. Quite a few files were either dead (temporary files), semi-important MIDI files (to edit later on (self-created files that I don't need to be making anymore)), and others were special downloaded MIDIs that I was referred to a long time ago but rarely listen to. Woke up at 3:25 AM (�5 minutes) and went to bed at 6:47 PM.
Oct 15: Forums then working on the mountains. My parents then wanted me to rake leaves - spent two hours doing it. I then showered. I returned to the computer and done another mountain. I then left. I only went to Miracle Mart (a grocery store) to pick up more cereal (for snacks), and especially cheese since I didn't have any. I returned home and continued with my 2D game and finished 13 of about 18 predicted mountains. I got too tired to continue any further. Just as I was going to go to bed, one of my dogs gave birth. The baby is about 4 1/2 cubic inches in size, way smaller than I'm used to. The gender is unknown and quite pinkish skin with little fur, white fur. We now have, not 3 dogs, but 6. I never witnessed the birth. Woke up at 6:53 AM (�2 minutes) and went to bed at 9:06 PM.
Oct 16: Just two mountains left of second-closest range then of course lighting, anti-aliasing, and finalization. There are 3 babies now instead of one. Two were born just as I went to bed. For about 4 1/2 hours, I raked leaves and picked up stix (as in the game Pickup Stix only real sticks were used). This alone ended up filling 26 30-gallon bags of leaves, which seemed like a bunch. But there may still be another 7 or so needed! I was paid $20 for doing that. I also washed the ferrets. Woke up at 6:37 AM and went to bed at 11:09 PM (�2 minutes).
Oct 17: I woke up at 6:20ish due to nose bleed. I went to bed afterward again and woke up after 90 more minutes of sleep. Not much happened besides forums and the mountains. I finally managed to get a decent picture of the babies as I needed an alternate, separate light source - my lamp that I use as a night light (only a 40-watt bulb equivelent (10-watt bulb actually)). One of my boxes of cereal was already empty. The next came with a capsule (pill)-shaped toy (Froot Loops). I set it aside for possible selling on Ebay (if I'm allowed to that is). I first figured out how it worked. The top 2/3 of it was light and the the bottom part, due to some metalic thing, was heavy. This causes it to stand up with great chance (even with curved surfaces) due to the center of gravity being so low. I'm way too old for such a toy, but it's worthy enough to figure out the physics behind it (as I do with almost any other toy or TV ad featuring a toy). Children just play with it, while I study why it behaves the way it does. It's an odd twist. I then, near the end of the day, went outside to do something for dad. I founda shortcut and I built something out of a bunch of tree branches to haul a load of tree branches over to the brush pile very quickly. I returned to game design now starting the lighting of the 19 mountains. After that is anti-aliasing and finalization (finalization includes modifying the script to see if it works or not). It's the third set of mountains after that. I also figured out the color of the sky to greater precision, but the results don't seem to make sense. The hue is 229�, saturation is about 50%. This gives a color close to around 6070C0. This color, however, seems too gray. My original estimate for the sky was 6074F2, which, strangely enough is extremely close and that was a pure estimate. I can look at most any color and identify the hex color for it with remarkable precision to the computer. While taking a picture of the bags of leaves and stuff, I thought that I should take a picture of the sky. The brightness will likely be off as I figured, but it's the hue and saturation that shouldn't change. I'm still going to go with my original 6074F2 estimate. I woke up at 8:59 AM and went to bed at 9:11 PM (�2 minutes).
Oct 18: Forums and mountains as usual. I went to the vet around 3:45 PM to check on "Fluffy Fur", the dog (a nickname) that gave birth. Everything is normal except a vaginal inflamation. I returned to continuing the mountains, then watching the news was added in (mostly listening to it though). I then continued on with the mountains. A little after 7:00 PM, I continued moving the sticks as I did last night and finished. I built the same contraption as before to mass-move them. I returned to the mountains again. At 8:00 PM, I watched "Cosmos" again. The ad said "Cultural phenomenon" in it for the new show and the narration is well done. The music is also good, especially the end - out comes the microphone and WinDAT again. I continued on until I got too tired. And, for the first time, I reported a bug (relating to selections not appearing when a previous selection was off screen but existing) for GIMP that someone else encountered as well. Usually, it's a duplicate that I submit, despite searching. There was a second but I found that one and added a comment (selections are invisible on gray backgrounds). I forgot to check that one. These bugs were submitted two days ago. I also wished I didn't have a nose - can't smell and too many nose bleeds. I seem to have a big obession with one particular kind of lower-case G. Woke up at 9:20 AM (�20 minutes) and went to bed at 10:22 PM.
Oct 19: "Fluffy Fur" woke up up, the dog that had babies. Then, when mom left for work, I watched over "Fluffy Fur" and her babies having them and her in my room much of the time (since I'm there almost all they time, I could easily monitor them). The usual happened: forums and mountains. Doing the mountains isn't much fun when it comes to the lighting. Doing the antialiasing, shaping, and finalization, however, are the fun parts. I've done 8 of the 19 mountains' lighting so far. Three more dreams were recalled this day. One was over the night, and another with over 50% certainty that I've already added. Nothing else happened worth noting, however. Woke up at 9:30 AM (�15 minutes) and went to bed at 10:57 PM.
Oct 20: Nothing more than forums and some TV, the 3DGS forums in particular. I then continued on with the mountains as usual but had the urge to try something out. With the help of Excel (for planning), the lighting is now much smoother and, although slower to do, I can avoid two fairly lengthy steps - plotting the points as a base and color erasing to set the alpha for each part of the shading (16 parts in all hence the 16-stage lighting) and doing it for each layer (one mountain at a time). The color erasing part involves the following: select by color on the darkest shade of gray visible (black and white are shades of gray - white is just a bright shade of gray), bucket fill the whole selection to black, change to color erase mode, set the opacity to what is needed, bucket fill whole selection again, use eyedropper tool to check alpha (if set correctly, I return to the select by color part, if not, I use control+Z (undo) and fix it - stubborn since I can't set alpha directly based on the 0-255 method as I need a calculator to do the conversions meaning more time is needed to punch numbers into the calculator). With the new method I just use the rectangular selection tool and select the lowest noncompleted row of pixels to measure it then select the entire row of pixels of my special lighting layer and use the scale layer after floating the 2048x1 selection to the width I measured and position it doing it one row at a time. I can do, in a good run, one row of pixels on the mountains in 45 seconds. At the end of the day, 4 mountains have been processed already. Woke up at 10:20 AM (�20 minutes) and went to bed at 12:57 AM.
Oct 21: Now 9 of the mountains have been processed. Between dogs, eating, TV, and now the urge to update my website, even just the blog, it's now getting tough to really cruise along again. With the need to convert the dreams section to the version 6.0 changeover on my site, adding my flock of about ten more dreams isn't worth it until the changeover is done for that area. There isn't much to it anyway, mostly just copying and pasting and saving HTML as SHTML. However, the point of the change is editting the documents making any grammer fixes and better sectionizing. Dreams don't need sectionizing, but instead, I'll hae more aspects of the dreams, but this could take a while. From the local news about 3 days ago, I heard that an old member of the Mafia was here in my home town lecturing kids. Woke up at 11:25 AM and went to bed at 5:06 AM.
Oct 22: Forums then TV. I was going to go to the store, but needed a shower first. 22 is my unlucky number and it so happened that, since I didn't have any clean underwear, I had to wash some taking an hour and a half to do that. It took 2 1/2 hours to finally be able to go. When I did go, it was quite dark - just after sunset. I saw a very bright point in the sky. I waited to see if it was a plane, but the fact that it didn't move or get dimmer/brighter (from distance) ruled that out. It was otherwise too bright out for the stars so I figured it was one of those sunward planets (Mercury and Venus are sunward of Earth). The point of light was right in the area of the sunset. Being as bright as it was, I figured it was Venus. I was going to get Domino's but they didn't have the hand-tossed crust, my favorite kind, and for some odd reason, they had thin crust available. This doesn't add up. No crust, but have thin crust? It's saying that zero equals one, a false statement. I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things, mainly cereal and more lemonades. I returned to the computer. I had the idea of a new tip/trick for the tips and tricks category - how to find the cheapest price by the unit using the 4 stages I use. I was on the forums while doing some of this. Woke up at 1:59 PM and went to bed at 6:12 AM.
Oct 23: Mixed day but of nothing special. Forums, TV, and working on my 2D game were the main things. The only odd thing was that I raked leaved that I missed before (in the area where I had to move sticks building a "machine" out of them to massmove them). I'm now on mountain number 10 (of 19) with 12 rows of pixels done. It also seems that I could be getting 12 million polygons per second (as one user with a nearly identical system to mine tested out). For something like this, I'd be making a very high quality version of almost everything. With my current level as is, I could easily be getting over 500 frames per second (based on that information), but I'm only getting 20. I've also tested the case with speeding up my system and found that Spy Sweeper, which hasn't been working properly and now I'm denied updates to the program due to my subscription expiring so bye bye Spy Sweeper (now, where is that recycle bin in Windows at - the program belongs in there). Woke up at an unknown time and went to bed at 5:26 AM.
Oct 24: The lighting of the second mountain range is now completed with antialiasing now in the works. Two mountains are already done and the third, of 19, is 2/3 done. Antialiasing is fun and fast. Finalization remains - merging the layers, splitting up the texture to meet the power-of-two requirements, then modifying the script to allow for the change to be previewed. I picked up the leaves I raked up yesterday, about half of them (cold outside). I need to redo the lighting for the closest mountains and fix the sky color now that I have a more precise version of it. That, however, will be quick. I'm also having intentions on making a "long hand" multiplication question be worked out through a program. You put in the numbers you need and the computer shows the long-hand version, as one would do on paper. It's a strange way to do arithmatic (math) homework - write a program to do it for you having to do the math in a completely different way than assigned. Woke up at 4:19 PM and went to bed at 7:03 AM.
Oct 26: Forums at first, then finishing up bagging the leaves, followed by 4 1/2 hours of TV (space stuff mainly, including "Cosmos"), then back on the forums while finishing up on the mountains. I finally finished the second range. Along the way, I decided to change the fog color, but it didn't look anywhere near as good as it was. The fix, however, is quick, thanks to backup. I began experimenting with the fog color and it looked worse than it did before. Earlier, I checked the beta version, thinking of that dream I had featuring the 6.34.4 beta for 3DGS, and to my surprise, there was such an edition that didn't exist at the time the dream occurred, but, unlike the dream, it wasn't a public beta. At least it gives me more time to do my 2D game. Plans for tomorrow, well, when I wake up that is (since it'll still be Oct 26) are to fix the fog to the way I had it before then, especially, update my website. It's been 17 days now since the last update to my site (I normally target 10 days between updates, but wanted to finish the second mountain range so I can show the progress).... I also had a funny mind game event. I'm walking into a store (in my mind game) and I race to find a small but cheap item. I put the item in my chest (it gets compressed to almost nothing as matter is mostly empty space) then cast the duplicate spell on it ten times to now get 1024 copies of that object. I then return one of the objects to the shelf (as if I didn't want it) and then head out to the checkout. I then, for several minutes, reach into the chest and take out the duplicates one at a time doing about 2 a second. After 782 items go through, the cashier gets confused and that the stock showed only 523 items, but 782 items of the same type rang up on the cash register. I finally place the last item down paying a bill for $761.74 for all that. After paying, I put everything back in my chest within a few seconds then leave the store casting duplicate again but placing the duplicates in the warehouse (where merchandise is stored) to make it appear as if something screwy went on. This way, I walk away with 1024 of the objects, the store gets money, and the store gains that particular item in a much bigger quantity than they anticipated. It's a funny way to make a donation. I got this idea from watching that one "Hungry Man" advertisement where a guy buys so many "Hungry Man" products holding up the line. Running in 16x time helps with that (even 32 and 64x time). I woke up at 5:03 PM (�2 minutes) and went to bed at 8:16 AM.
Oct 27: Almost as I had planned. Forums and some TV. I fixed the fog, got screenshots, then began updating my website, mainly only my blog. That went a lot faster than expected though. After "recleaning" the forums, I began fixing the lighting on the closest mountains. 2 mountains of 14 down already! I prepared the third to be processed but didn't start it. I now seem to like Desert Zone at around 45 to 60% of the true speed when, before, I didn't. It might be because of the high quality version I now have. I'm now up to 3 toys in my stock.... Woke up at 5:03 PM and went to bed at 8:06 AM.
Oct 28: Forums, mountains, and Laff-a-lympics (a TV show - funny with the Really Rottens team and their funny cheats) made up the day. 7 mountains have now been processed in full with the 8th half done. Other than that, nothing much happened. Still at Desert Zone. I also did a test. I did 13 rows of pixels on the mountains in 5 minutes, 20 seconds, meaning I took an average of 26 37/60 (5/8) seconds per row, twice as fast as I had originally thought. The mountains are usually about 70 to 100 rows of pixels meaning two medium-small-sized ones can be done in an hour (146 1/4 rows according to my calculations). Ironically, I seem to have more motive to do it with the forums in the background. I have them open while waiting for anything new. If nothing is going on, I process the mountains to where the rows are 40 pixels narrower then refresh the document. Woke up at 5:56 PM and went to bed at 9:26 AM.
Oct 29: Had two recalled dreams in one night. Much of the day was spent both on the forums and updating the lighting on the closest mountains. They were all done by 7:00 AM. I reapplied the anti-aliasing and now two mountain ranges are done. My main intent afterwards was fixing up the status displays to make them more legible. There are now black, half-transparent backgrounds behind them and the text is now white again. The black BG gives better contrast to the scenery to make the text easily readable on any background, but still be able to see the scenery behind it. I'm now having intentions on making the menus next. Woke up at 7:51 PM and went to bed at 11:28 AM.
Oct 30: Menus, menus, and more menus. Nearly 80% of the day was spent working on the menu screens. If you've ever used or seen the CMOS/BIOS setup screen, the controls are the same - except that you select the "back" option to go up a level in the menus rather than Esc. It's my first ever working menu system. 3 areas are now complete with the 4th, the biggest one, nearly done. There are two others yet. Outside that, due to daylight "unsavings" time ending, clocks had to be set back an hour. The satellite (TV) was showing the time going from 1:30 AM to 1:00 AM then to 1:30 AM again, someting I've never seen. Strange case with DirecTV, and considering we've had it for like 4 years now, this is the first time (in 7 to 9 cases) that I've seen such a thing. I also had another dream, one so well forgotten, it'd likely end up in the "other" category. Finally, when I took the mountains away through the use of my menus (no manual or forum help was needed to make them anyway), I got a first-class look at the fog. It was downright awesome! You can see it in the screenshots for the Nov 13, 2005 entry yourself (news item 1). This was one of my most heavily devoted days to my 2D game, possibly even a record! Woke up at 9:58 PM and went to bed at 11:58 AM.
Oct 31: The menus are now done for what I had planned. There are some things that need to be done, but are currently nonexistant. Time control now goes up to 64x true time instead of just 16x time. The horizon indicator now has support for custom values. You can toggle away or back the background scenery to a blank field and with the menus, I can get rid of the stuff on the sides and have just the scene visible. You could now run at 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 resolutions with the 1280x960 resolution debated on. I did visit the forums for some time, but, like yesterday, most of the day was spent working on my menus. I might have the biggest menu system in 3DGS history (highly uncertain - no evidence). Almost all of it is in the configuration menu. Another sizeable chunk is the "about this game" section, containing a brief history, some future plans, and other common questions. The menu help area explains the stuff rather than pressing enter for the info. Menu is now 95% complete. Halloween is spooky when it comes to all those scary-looking costumes (they aren't scary, considering that you know they're just a human dressed up like that). Seemed like an ordinary day and went to bed before any trick-or-treaters came. November is another one of those neutral-luck months like September and October. My 2D script now has 15,000 lines, 1/3 of which for the menus. I also had a rather strange mind game event. I'm trick-or-treating (walking/running) along. When about to stop at another house for more goodies, a bulldog, a very mean-looking one, came running along. After a half second seeing him, I set the time control to 1/1024x time. Do I use the flash attack straight down, straight at the dog, or back away? I decide, after 4 seconds (1/256 of a second in my mind game), to use the flash attack away. The dog makes a yelp while I'm heading away at 95 mph. A time jump occurs where the local news was on and I was watching it on TV. They were saying of a strange being, a sudden flash, a dog yelping, and the being disappeared. It's a strange kind of Halloween spook.

Go to another time:
Earlier than 2005: Earlier than Nov 2004 | Nov 2004 (and late Oct 2004) | Dec 2004

Year 2005: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2006: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2007: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2008: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2009: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2010: Yet to arrive....

The news entry headlines in bold are color-coded for a reason. They tell how big the event was for the headlines and how good my day was for the daily entries. From May 2006 onward, a slightly different system is used, of which has triple the precision. For dates prior to this that use color coding, from the white color, skipping two to red and so on is used. Here's what each color represents (for updates to before May of 2006):

	Extremely major event / Very good day
	Extremely major event / Very good day
	Major event / Good day


	Somewhat major event / Somewhat good day


	Normal event / Average day


	Somewhat minor event / Somewhat bad day


	Minor event / Bad day


	Extremely minor event / Very bad day
	Extremely minor event / Very bad day

Footnotes:
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