Exciting Progress: Face Tracking

I have been really dragging my feet lately. Being laid off sucks. Its like a vacation that you can't enjoy because you feel like a total loser.

Anyways, I was able to integrate the head tracking into my Cyber Table project. Seeing Machine's Face API integrated in fairly easily, which was a huge surprise to me. Right now I am messing around with head position, but I don't think that getting head orientation to work is that far off.

This is a huge step forward for this project!

Boring Progress

Tonight I got the keyboard input to work with my CyberTable solution. Keyboard input worked in Battle Kart prior to the Ogre version upgrade, but now with Ogre 1.6.0 input is handled a little differently. Mouse input should be pretty easy to implement now that I have the keyboard working.

My next task is stripping down the cybertable project so that it basically loads up a level on startup. This will allow me to mockup a level in maya, export it, and load it up in game quickly.

I am still pretty pissed that CEGUI doesn't currently work, because I had an awesome gui system setup in Battle Kart that would allow me to prototype quickly and see output easily.

Laid Off

So last Tuesday (12/16/08) I got laid off. I worked at Midway Games - Chicago and they laid off about 150 people from the studio. Midway has been a sinking ship for some time, but I was definitely caught off guard by being laid off right before Christmas. Bummer.

Anyways, I just got the the Ogre .scene exporter working for Maya. This will allow me to create levels in Maya and export them to .scene files with physics information attached. The .scene file just contains the positions, orientations, and physics info on different meshes.

Next I am going to copy Battle Kart to a new solution and gut it so that it just loads a .scene file straight up. Once I have this solution setup, I can start working on the CyberTable specific stuff and run tests with different scenes.

Sometimes It Just Feels Good To Win One

Yesterday, I was able to accomplish some really important tasks without too much frustration:
- Install Adobe Photoshop CS3
- Install Maya Unlimited 7.0.1
- Install FaceAPI
- Convert Battle Kart to compile/run with the newest OgreSDK (somewhat gimped)

Accomplishing these items definitely felt great, especially after Saturday's nauseating drama. I tried out the FaceAPI example apps, which compiled without fuss, and they worked brillantly. My only concern with FaceAPI is if it can identify a face that is beyond 3 feet away.

I'm really excited to have Maya installed because that will allow me to create levels and objects to test with. The next thing I will probably do is hookup the Ogre scene exporter that has Newton physics integration. The scene exporter was made by a member of the Ogre community, but I tweaked it so that it could export physics material info.

To recap, here is my remaining task list:
- Copy the gimped Battle Kart project to a new CyberTable project
- Gut CyberTable project code so that it can easily load up a level
- Install Maya .scene exporter
- Install PS Eyetoy as Webcam
- Install AR Toolkit
- Compile AR Toolkit in VS 2005 to get 2005 version libs
- Compile Mr. Planet in VS 2005 to get 2005 version libs
- Fix Flipped Webcam image problem

A Weekend of Work

This weekend I spent a great deal of time working on the CyberTable. I have been taking my Battle Kart project from college and trying to update it to Ogre 1.6.0 Shaggoth. This caused a plethora of problems. I had to comment out all of the keyboard functionality and comment out all of the graphical user interface code. I also had to download the Newton SDK and the OgreNewt solution so that I could link the newest Ogre and Newton.

The CEGUI (crazy eddie's graphical user interface) stuff really pissed me off because it worked so well in Battle Kart. When I had to update to the new Ogre, the CEGUI .dll's that I had no longer worked because they were not linked against Ogre 1.6.0. As of right now none of the gui stuff that I had in Battle Kart works, which could make things difficult going forward.

Anyways, this weekend was stressful and frustrating because I was doing all of the tedius BS that is required when setting up a project. Going forward I will be stripping down Battle Kart to its bare essentials. My starting point will be a code base where I can easily get a level loaded from Maya. Then I can start working on the new tech for the project.

Bitter Sweet

Last night I was able to make some head way:

- Install XBox360 Controllers
- Test Battle Kart to ensure that my games work on my new system

The sweet part is that after a few hours of painstakingly removing errors caused by the transition to Ogre 1.6.0, I finally got the game to compile. At that point I got all jazzed up because I thought everything was good to go.

The bitter part is that there were errors when I tried to boot the game. At first there were problems with OgreMain.dll, but those were remedied by copying over the new .dll's from the SDK into my project's bin folder. After that there was a problem with the CEGUI.dll. At that point it was around 1am and I had to go to bed for work in the morning.

Unfortunately this task still stands:
- Convert Battle Kart to compile/run with the newest OgreSDK

Frustration!

So after a few days of being busy with other stuff (my company potentially closing down), I got some time to work on the CyberTable.

Last night I completed these tasks:

- Install Visual Studio 2005

- Install Latest OgreSDK

- Install DirectX SDK

Let me say that Vista sucks! I couldn't even compile the example Ogre apps because the damn OS would not give Visual Studio the ability to write files when building. I had to waste a half hour online to figure out that I needed to set "open as Administrator" in the properties tab of the VS devenv.exe. WTF?

I am really not impressed with Vista so far. The graphics are nice, but the constant barrage of questions about everything sucks hard. I knew that starting this project on a new machine would be difficult so I am just going to have to grin and bear it.

Next on my agenda:

- Install XBox360 Controllers

- Test Battle Kart to ensure that my games work on my new system

- Convert Battle Kart to compile/run with the newest OgreSDK